What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 30 January 2024.

‘Růžová’ means two things: firstly, it’s the feminine adjective from růže (rose); secondly, it’s a colour which is prominent in Barbie, a film which there were one or two or three million op-eds about on this site last week.

Before the New Town was founded in the 14th century, the area around here was a village called Chudobice.

Gardens were later made on Chudobice’s territory, and I’m going to assume at least one of them was a rose garden.

(To the person at the back asking if there was ever a Czech cover version of Rose Garden, of course there was)

When the New Town was built, a church – the Church of Saint Henry and Saint Cunigunde, AKA The One On Jindříšská – soon followed, and inherited a garden, although the area would become less and less green as it became more residential.

Rose-related names appear as early as 1418, such as Růžená, or Domy v zahradě růžové (Houses in the rose garden); the current name has been in place since the 1800s.

For vocabulary fans, růžové líce are rosy cheeks, křiklavě růžový is shocking pink, dívat se na svět růžovými brýlemi is looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles, and růžové víno is ‘rosé wine’.

Here’s a quite ‘so this happened’ 2000 Czech cover version of Where the Wild Roses Grow, originally by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Kylie Minogue: